Under that exclusive arrangement, other distributors don`t bring the mountains of Busch into the Worthweins` territory, and the Worthweins don`t say ``This Bud`s for you`` to customers in another distributor`s area.

Such exclusive territorial agreements are the subject of legislation now before the U.S Senate that has stirred up a frothy debate. Beer distributors say the legislation would protect them from frivolous and unfounded antitrust charges. But a number of consumer groups, grocery retailers and federal agencies claim the legislation would result in consumers paying artificially high prices for beer by granting beer wholesalers and brewers immunity to the nation`s antitrust laws.

``The bottom line is that this bill is horribly anti-consumer,`` said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steve Cannon of the Department of Justice. ``The overwhelming liklihood is higher prices to consumers.``

Beer wholesalers, though, say they are just trying to preseve the status quo and stay out of court.

``What we are not trying to do here is grant an exemption for the beer industry from the federal antitrust laws,`` stated Richard Thornburg, vice president of government affairs for the National Beer Wholesalers Association. ``What we are simply trying to accomplish is to reduce, if not eliminate, frivolous antitrust law suits. Since 1980 there have been over 80 challenges to exclusive territories in the federal courts.``

While a group of about 30 food retail trade groups, government agencies and consumer groups oppose the legislation, its only supporters are found in the beer industry.

Wholesale beer distributors say exclusive territories work and have worked for brewers, distributors, retailers and consumers since the end of Prohibition, because the arrangements focus competition between brewers and their different brands of beer, rather than between distributors of the same product.

Those exclusive territory arrangements can be kept from becoming monopolistic or anti-competitive by federal antitrust legislation, the Sherman Act, Cannon said. If challenged, distributors and brewers must prove that the pro-competitive benefits of such arrangements outweigh any anti-competitive tendencies.

But opponents of the bill -- called the Malt Beverage Interbrand Competition Act (S. 412) -- charge that beer wholesalers will try to mug consumers once distributors don`t have to worry about antitrust suits.

``We do feel that it will raise the price of beer,`` said Lars Peterson, senior government relations representative of the Food Marketing Institute of Washington, D.C. ``What`s going to happen is beer wholesalers` prices are going to go up more because they`re not going to be afraid of a challenge to their exclusive territory system.`` Peterson added that Congressional testimony by the Justice Department listed only six challenges to exclusive beer territory agreements in federal courts for the last nine years.

The food marketers and the Justice Department also believe that the legislation -- first proposed three years ago -- creates a new, less restrictive standard that would protect beer wholesalers from antitrust challenges. In fact, language in the original Senate bill that specifically disallowed such monopolistic practices as price fixing and group boycotts by distributors was removed from the bill when it was appended to the fiscal 1987 Postal and Treasury appropriations bill.

``The bill that is now attached to the appropriations bill . . . provides for an absolute exemption from the antitrust laws and that includes price-fixing, bid-rigging and other things,`` the Justice Department`s Cannon said.

Peterson of the food marketers said that exclusive contracts already mean higher prices for consumers. In 27 states, exclusive territories for beer distribution is mandated by state law, while 22 other states -- including Florida -- are neutral on the subject. Only Indiana specifically prohibits, by regulation, exclusive territories.

``We`re convinced the greatest impact is going to happen in states where the laws are silent or neutral,`` said Peterson. ``The reason they want this is they haven`t been able to get exclusive territory laws passed in those 22 states.``